


Breathe into me and make me real

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Lives, Comes Back Wrong, Extra Treat, F/M, Resurrection, ToT: Battle of the Bands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27089863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Rey gave everything she could to bring Ben back. She's not sure that was a good idea.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 38
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Breathe into me and make me real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LamiaCalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LamiaCalls/gifts).



Rey has so many questions, and no one to answer them. Luke's spirit has been silent in his disapproval ever since she started down the road that brought them to this place. The Sith searched for this knowledge for centuries. Regular beings, unburdened with Force sensitivity, have dreamed of it far longer. The Jedi found the secret long ago, and bottled the truth away in the name of safety but in the service of their own fears.

Life past life. Rebirth. Impossible, but the evidence sits before her.

Ben turns his head with an unnatural slowness. She can feel him through their bond, could feel him lingering nearby over the months after she lost him. He's never left her side. He's warned her of dangers, and sparkled with amusement when she's been happy. At night, he's rested inside her mind or warmed her with his tingling presence as her own hand slipped between her legs, reliving the times they touched themselves together this same way across endless space. Death is just another distance to overcome.

Rey overcame it.

Luke is unhappy with her, but he's been disappointed with her since they met. This is nothing new.

"You should eat," she tells Ben now, placing the bowl into his hands. He raises his arms, the muscles under a strange control, not the automatic flow of nerve and bone but the jerk of conscious motor requirement. He spills some of the thin soup, and doesn't seem to notice. "Good boy," she tells him anyway, and turns to her own meal. They'll have to take on supplies soon. She spent every last credit she had getting her ship to the abandoned temple with the items she needed. Getting more credits is a problem for tomorrow.

"I hope we see our friends again soon," Ben says, his voice rougher than before.

Rey can't stop the shiver that moves through her. "Soon enough," she lies. She won't take him back to the others until she's sure, really and truly sure, that he's safe for them to be near. The Jedi knowledge returned him to life. Her own wisdom will keep him with her and away from the other people she loves until she feels confident in that decision.

He watches her, and she feels the pressure of his mind on hers. It's Ben. She knows this is Ben, with no trace of Kylo's self-hating madness marring his signature in the Force. It's Ben and he is alive, and these are what Rey will hold onto for as long as she can. She'll embrace him, even if his skin stays clammy and pale, and she'll kiss him again and again, even if his breath puffs like a memory of a breeze rather than powered by his lungs. She'll love him, because she can do nothing else even if a time comes when she has to kill him again.

But she wishes Luke would speak to her, and she wishes she could ask him why, when she looks into Ben's eyes, all she sees is the reflection of a dark, raging fire in a starless pit far too deep to name.


End file.
